"I'm going to get you a gold medal" - Vernon Norwood reveals his conversation with Quincy Wilson following a slow 4x400m relay split at Paris Olympics

Vernon Norwood, a four-time Olympic medalist, recently revealed the pep-talk that he gave to 16-year-old Quincy Wison following the latter's disappointing performance in Heat 1 of the Men's 4x400m relay.

Wilson, running in the first-ever Olympic event of his career got an opportunity to show his prowess and registered a run time of 47.27 seconds in his lap and obtained a leg rank of 7.

It was not the ideal way that Wilson aspired to start his Olympic run but the likes of Norwood, Bryce Deadmon and Christopher Bailey made sure that Wilson's mistake didn't cost the United States a place in the finals of the event.

However, this disappointing performance on a personal note hurt the sentiments of Wilson. Norwood, being one of the senior members of the team, consoled the 16-year-old with a bit of pep-talk. In an interview with Citius Mag, Norwood revealed what he said to Wilson following the heats of the Men's 4x400m relay at the Paris Olympics. He stated:

"Don’t worry about this. I'm going to get you a gold medal. I promise you.’ ... I think he was just a little bit disappointed in how he performed, but I'm like, ‘Don't even worry about that stuff. You're about to walk away with an Olympic gold medal at 16 years old."

During the heats, the US team finished in third place, just behind Botswana and Great Britain, to qualify for the finals. They ultimately clinched the gold medal with an Olympic record time of 2:54.43 in the finals. Although Wilson didn't compete in the finals, he was awarded a gold medal as a member of the 4x400m relay pool.

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Vernon Norwood wins two medals at the Paris Olympics 2024

Vernon Norwood at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris (Credits: Getty Images)

Vernon Norwood ended his 2024 Paris Olympics campaign with two medals, a gold medal in the Men's 4x400m relays and a silver medal in the Mixed 4x400m relays. Running in the second lap of the men's 4x400m finals, Norwood registered a run time of 43.26 seconds and helped his team beat Letsile Tebogo-led Botswana by a margin of 0.10 seconds.

In the mixed relay finals, Vernon Norwood ran the first lap of the race and clocked an impressive run time of 44.46 seconds. His performance almost gave the United States another gold medal in the track and field event but Femke Bol's amazing run in the final lap (run time of 48:00 seconds) of the race gave the Netherlands a slight edge over the US.

Norwood-led US mixed 4x400m relay team had to settle for the silver medal while the Netherlands took home the gold medal after registering a combined run time of 3:07.43.